Overnight stays in France

For me personally I wouldn't go near a autoroute service area to sleep overnight, They are too noisy with truckers coming and going all night. I always pull off the autoroute and find a municipal site. These are mainly local authority run and offer great facilities for overnight. Most large local towns will have one. Alternatively, with a motorhome, you can use something called an Aire, not to be confused with those on a motorway. I tow a caravan so will leave someone with better experience to explain their use but they are very cheap.

You don't say where your destination but by mentioning Troyes you will be heading for the centre of the south coast. That is a long haul from Calais, about 700 miles so you may want to factor in more than one stop. Troyes if 250 so that leaves you roughly 450 miles left to do. 

A popular overnight with Brits on that route is a site at Chalon en Champagne which is about 200 from Calais. another equal distance stop after that would be Macon.

You can stay on motorway services if you wish, but, as Harry says, they tend to be noisy with trucks coming and going in the night. There are more pleasant places in just about every town and village - either campsites or aires.

You need decent guides listing them all  - they come in printed book form or as apps, or you can simply look on the internet. The  two towns you mention both have overnight aires and CamperContact.com will show you and tell you what they  are like. 

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Hi, I am in the 'no way' camp re overnights on service areas and, if I was to consider doing so, I would soon be posting from just 'A' the 'J' having voted with her feet!

In all seriousness, if you cannot find a village  aire within a short distance of any route you take then there has been a lot of misinformation posted about the advantages of a MH.

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Hi David, We have only ever spent one night enroute not on a site and that was due to being stuck on the ferry due to an issue with unloading.

My point was that, for the OP, in a MH, in France why would they need to stop on a service area unless that is their preference.

Our now abandoned trip to Italy this year was going to be the first using our new regime of travelling a max of app 200 miles a day, as opposed to a max of 400, albeit that was only once across Spain, and a norm of 300-350.

Even in France I had to resort to Google map searches etc which is something I presume would not be the case when you can use aires. 

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We have been going to the South of France since 1992 on and off although not in the last few years. I have these maps on my website that show both the Lyon and Clermont Ferrand routes to the south with suggested campsites. See here http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/the_route_south_2.html 

Might be worth looking at Vicarious Books and consider a motorhome Aires book rather than an Autoroute Service Area.

David

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